Ch.XV.j ON PEASE 217 



a multitude of paupers around tlie premises, who sleep either in the barns 

 and out-houses, or under rude tents fixed in tlie lanes, like gipsies, and 

 their i'uel is invariably purk)ined from the hedtres : together, not unfre- 

 quently, with any other article that may fall conveniently into their 

 clutches. The number of persons employed is of course in proportion to 

 the state of the crop, and about ten acres will generallv afford employment 

 to near forty people*. As the pods are gathered the moment that any 

 portion of the fruit is fit for the table, the peas are generally picked twice 

 over, and the haulm is immediately cut up and removed if possible to an 

 adjoining field, where it is cured, and the ground is then usually prepared 

 for turnips. At times, however, large quantities are necessarily left to 

 stand for seed ; this indeed is esteemed a loss, as they are less profitable 

 in that state than while green, but those which come late to maturity are 

 iiardly worth the expense of carriage. 



The carts are loaded, and sent off at various hours proportioned to tlie 

 distance from market, so as to deliver their load to the salesman between 

 three and five o'clock in the morning. When the crop succeeds, both in 

 produce and in earliness, no species of farming cultivation can equal the 

 profit; but so great and immediate is the fall of price within a day or 

 two after favourable weather, that nothing can be more variable than the 

 market returns, and these early species can never be grown with any prospect 

 of success, except the land is of a light and loamy nature, and has a warm 

 exposure. The expenses of picking and carrying to market, and the sales- 

 man's charges, can only be supported by the high rate at which they are 

 usually sold during a short period of the very earliest part of the season : 

 farmers who prefer security to speculation, therefore, very generally make 

 a previous agreement with a dealer for a fixed sum per acre, clear of all 

 expenses — varying usually from 61. to SI. or 9/., according to the appearance 

 of the crop, and binding him to take it off by a certain day; leaving, how- 

 ever, the haulm upon the ground. 



The soil to wliicli pease are the most appropriate partakes of sand and 

 loam mixed with calcareous particles, and of a nature neither too much 

 exposed to a cold humidity, nor to drought ; but they are also known to 

 succeed in some seasons on strong clays, and on clayey sands, when the 

 latter are not too dry. The grey species are best adapted to the stronger 

 soils ; the white to the drier and the li<:htcr ones : in all cases, however, a 

 mixture of calcareous soil is so highly favourable to their growth, that 

 shell-marl, or lime, is ever found to forward a crop more than any other 

 kind of mineral manure, though it is said to communicate a degree of 

 hardness to the grain which renders it unfit for boilingf. It is, however, 

 worthy of observation, that when dung 'fapplied, that of sheep or horses 

 has been found to impart a better flavour to the pea, and to render the 

 luisk thinner than when that of hogs or oxen has been used. Although 

 the quality of their nutritive properties is nearly similar to those of beans, 

 yet it will be thus seen that they not only require a different species of soil; 

 but that, so far from admitting tlie frequent repetition of a bean crop, it is 



* Middlesex Rep., 2nd edit. p. 249. 



f A considerable mystery seems to hang about the boiling jiroperties of peas ; for 

 pood boilers have been known upon sandy and gravelly soils, which have afterwards 

 produced a hard, indissoluble pea from the same seed, and many instances might be 

 related of their being apparently dependent upon accident. (Surv. of Hants, p. 1C7-) 

 Some opinions refer this peculiarity to the seasons, though it occurs every year on 

 some land ; others conceive it to arise from the time of putting in the seed, or to its 

 being either new or too old ; but we are not acquainted with any series of experiments 

 on the subject upon which reliance can be {'laced. 



